The Singapore economy has to be more like a “runway” than just a “control tower”, where ideas are conceived, business plans are developed, and products and services eventually launched, said Acting Minister for Education (Higher Education and Skills) Ong Ye Kung at a forum on the future economy. He added that this shift in the economy needed to be fuelled by different skills, risk appetites and new ideas.

One of the biggest challenges in the future economy is matching the right skills with the right jobs. To tackle this, three ministries – Trade & Industry, Education and Manpower – and the Committee on the Future Economy are working together to provide a holistic approach to equip Singaporeans acquire the right skills and experiences for the future.

• Spearheading Singapore’s charge into the future are the Ministry of Trade and Industry and the Committee on the Future Economy working to seize opportunities and create new jobs for tomorrow.
• To ensure that there is a steady stream of skilled workers for these new jobs, the Ministry of Education and SkillsFuture Singapore are driving efforts to train and retrain workers. Schemes like the SkillsFuture Mid-Career Enhanced Subsidy and SkillsFuture Credit help workers to adapt and grow throughout their careers.
• Finally to ensure no one is left behind, the Ministry of Manpower is encouraging employers to hold on to vulnerable workers through various schemes, such as the Special Employment Credit and WorkPro. There are also plans to raise the re-employment age from 65 to 67.

The committee recognises that the constant upgrading of workers’ skills is a key pillar of Singapore’s strategy to become a ‘runway economy’. For example, SkillsFuture Credit gives S$500 to all Singaporeans aged 25 and above to encourage them to take charge of their own lifelong learning.

The SkillsFuture Earn and Learn Programme is targeted at polytechnic and ITE graduates, allowing them to work and study at the same time in an industry related to their discipline of study. Mid-career Singaporeans can take advantage of the SkillsFuture Mid-Career Enhanced Subsidy – which subsidises SkillsFuture Singapore-funded courses by up to 90%.

To find out more about what SkillsFuture can do for you, visit http://www.skillsfuture.sg/.

news source: Gov.sg

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